Berlin Travel Guide

Berlin Burgeoning With Film Festivities

Berlin doesn't have a ubiquitous reputation as a patron of the arts like Paris, but that doesn't mean they don't have an appreciation for the fine as exemplified with the Berlinale or Berlin International Film Festival as it's known to foreign audiences. Bringing together and showcasing some of the finest examples of 21st century film, including the Iranian Mr. Panahi and the French-Canadian Denis Côté.

In these expansionist times, film festivals are no longer just annual showcases but ongoing enterprises, balancing multiple roles and goals for a lot more than one or two weeks a year. The Berlin International Film Festival, or the Berlinale as it is more commonly known, induces a citywide outbreak of acute cinephilia every winter — screening rooms are perpetually full and the most dedicated audience members camp out in sleeping bags waiting for ticket counters to open at the Arkaden mall at Potsdamer Platz — but showing movies is only one of many things that a 21st-century film festival does.